‘FRACKING’ ENERGY REVOLUTION BEGINS TO ROCK THE WORLD

You might have heard of “fracking,” a new drilling technology that is unlocking vast pools of oil and natural gas in Texas and the Midwest — and probably coming soon to California. The technology’s ability to create instant wealth in rural communities, along with environmental problems if not done properly, was the subject of a Hollywood drama last year that most moviegoers missed.

But an increasing number of business and government leaders are paying close attention, as the technology fuels an energy revolution that is rippling around the globe.

For the generation of Americans who remember the trauma of the Arab oil embargo and gas lines of the 1970s, consider this: For the first time since 1949, the U.S. in 2011 became a net exporter of gasoline, diesel and other refined products. No, that is not a typo. And the U.S. is forecast to surpass Saudi Arabia to become the world’s biggest oil producer in just seven years, and could become a net exporter of crude oil a decade later.

This astonishing shift from scarcity to abundance — which nobody predicted — is beginning to fundamentally alter economies and government policy from Russia to Ohio; reshape the world’s military-political landscape; and simultaneously help and handicap the effort to slow global warming.

“We’ve entered a new era,” said Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning oil industry historian whose recent book, “The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World,” details the rise of unconventional energy resources.

California, with the nation’s largest known untapped deposit, could fund epic investments in infrastructure and economic growth. Or state leaders might create a U.S. version of Norway, where oil wealth pays for a vast welfare state.

For the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, which has spent billions “going green” in part to reduce dependence on unstable oil-producing nations, the fracking boom delivers a secure source of fuel and other supplies, thus reproducing a strategic advantage that helped America win World War II.

In the Middle East, rising supplies have hurt Iran, where economic sanctions are finally squeezing its program to develop nuclear weapons, Yergin said. “The sanctions on Iran could not have worked; there wasn’t enough supply in the world.”

And, although gasoline prices might seem high today, they would have been much higher, because the slump in U.S. imports has freed up oil for fast-growing China, India and Brazil.

On the environmental front, the boom is shaking the intellectual framework that supports efforts against global warming. The International Energy Agency reports that the U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide have dropped 7.7 percent since 2006, down 430 million metric tons.

Again, that’s not a typo. Most scientists assumed it would take years just to slow domestic growth in greenhouse gases. And yet, without signing the Kyoto climate change treaty or setting federal carbon limits, the U.S. has cut emissions dramatically — and by far more than any other country.

It’s an unintended consequence of fracking: Utilities are abandoning coal-burning power plants in favor of ones that burn natural gas, producing far less carbon.

What’s more, the new generators fire up quickly, a crucial feature for the nation’s growing fleet of solar and wind energy projects. “Natural gas generation is a kind of a partner that enables the large-scale use of renewables, which are intermittent and need to be backed up when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing,” Yergin said.

Some environmentalists worry that rising oil and natural gas supplies could cause prices to crash, undermining the campaign against global warming by making renewable energy relatively more expensive.

“I’m so worried right now that the mainstream consensus on global warming will get forgotten, even though the weather is getting worse already, and we are inexorably headed toward a world that lacks the carrying capacity today to support 10 billion people,” said Arthur Rosenfeld, the Berkeley physicist who is widely considered the father of energy efficiency, responsible for saving many billions of dollars with innovations such as compact fluorescent lights, heat-reflecting windows, and the nation’s first building codes that set insulation and other conservation standards.

At the same time, the U.S. consumer has recently entered yet another surprising new paradigm — our consumption of oil peaked in 2005, and a return to inexorable growth seems unlikely, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

Gasoline price spikes, the aging of the U.S. population, and tough new federal mileage standards are among the major causes.

So we are using less oil while producing vastly more in this country, and that trend extends as far as the eye can see, along with the economic benefits.

Fracking technology, which uses high-pressure water, sand and chemicals to fracture rock formations, started boosting natural gas supplies just five years ago, and more recently kicked off an oil boom in North Dakota and west Texas. Yergin estimates that unconventional drilling has already created 1.7 million jobs, sliced $70 billion from the nation’s balance of payments by reducing imports, and generated $62 billion in state and federal tax revenues.

And this revolution is just getting started. The nation’s largest deposits of unconventional oil are believed to lie beneath central California, where federal estimates say 15.4 billion barrels are trapped in the Monterey Shale, which extends for 1,750 square miles near Bakersfield.

Eons of earthquake activity have broken up the formation, making extraction difficult. But engineers are working to adapt the new technology to California conditions.

Last month economists at the University of Southern California estimated that developing the Monterey Shale could create up to 2.8 million jobs in the state, boost aggregate personal income by 10 percent, and send $24.6 billion to state and local governments.

The potential bonanza has caught the attention of Gov. Jerry Brown, who in March lent conditional support to unconventional oil development, provided that state regulators can craft rules to prevent environmental damage.

“The potential is extraordinary,” Brown said in a news conference. “When Californians can get around without using any gasoline, that’s the time for no more oil drilling — maybe. Taking care of our own problems is a good thing.”